Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Alive Magazine

Unravelling The Web


First Published: Alive Magazine, No. 57, October 30, 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.


[MIA Note: “Unravelling the Web” is an introduction to a larger article named “What is the Trouble and Who is the Trouble-Maker in the Anti-Imperialist Revolution?” The majority of this article is an exchange of letters between Alive and the CPC (M-L) over ownership of typesetting equipment and other financial matters. The introduction gives an overview (albeit from the perspective of Alive) on relations between the two organizations.]

* * *

...we have been able to turf out degenerate bourgeois elements, those with small businessman’s mentality and straight-forward saboteurs, just within a matter of less than two years, the life in the PCDN staff has vigorously developed and it dealt a firm blow to a petty businessman’s reactionary clan which tried to sabotage the work of PCDN staff last year. PCDN staff has grown strong by purging itself of such bad elements.” (PCDN, Vol. 6, No. 101, Nov. 3, 1976)

...A vigorous disorder took place in the fall of 1975 in the WCC of CPC (M-L) which cleared out of the Committee...those who used the opportunity of disorder to fish in the troubled waters. A petty businessman reactionary clan which had wormed its way in under various pretexts and was being trained to work for the Committee was firmly cleared out...” (PCDN, Vol. 6, No. 101, Nov. 3,1976)

...The opportunists are rotting Alive. Some of them have become professionals in picking sentences from Party literature in order to makr out some reactionary theories and are participating in spreading hearsay, rumours and slanders...” (PCDN, Vol. 6, No. 101, Nov. 3,1976)

The “petty businessman reactionary clan” is PCDN’s characterization of the Alive Production Collective.It is Alive which has become professional in picking sentences from CPC(M-L) literature to identify “some” reactionary theories. However, in addition, Alive has insisted on printing whole essays and extensive quotes from the Marxist-Leninist classics for our readers’ interest, as opposed to the CPC(M-L) style of picking out and waving around certain sentences and fragments of sentences from Marx, Engels, Lenin, maybe Stalin, and Mao Tsetung.

Having identified that this attack is aimed at Alive it is, surely, incumbent on Alive to put an end to any elements which might be construed to be “hearsay, rumours and slanders.” The way to fight against hearsay, rumour and slander is to present the facts. Now, in dealings with an organism as contorted as CPC(M-L) it is not always easy to straighten out the facts, but as Chairman Mao Tsetung put it so succinctly; “Nothing is hard in this world, if you dare to scale the heights.”

After more than a full year of unrelenting, ruthless polemics from Alive against their reactionary theories, CPC(M-L) has managed to muster enough courage to print a few-lines-long counter-attack. To this feeble cry from a “dog that has fallen into the water” Alive is responding with further “beatings”. In this issue we are reproducing an exchange of letters between Richard H. Daly, the National Spokesman of CPC(M-L), as a representative of a CPC(M-L) corporation, and Edward Pickersgill, the leading member of the Alive Production Collective, as a representative of Alive Press Ltd. The publication of this exchange will in itself completely wipe out all questions of “petty business” between Alive and CPC(M-L) or its organisms. Further, the exchange clearly exposes that the true advocate of “businessman’s mentality” is CPC(M-L) and clearly their hopes are not “small” but are straight-forward aspirations to big new-capitalist status.

We would like to make two points clear at the start.

First, many people have expressed to Alive the idea: why not just spit it out and get it over with. Well, there is an awful lot that needs to be dealt with, and also in these things it is too easy to “spit it out”, so to speak, and have nobody notice. So, we’ve tried to carry on a creative program of attacks on the actual politics of the CPC(M-L), in which organization opportunism has taken the upper hand. This opportunism-in-command dates at least from their so-called “22nd Congress” in 1973. Now that they have characterized us and accused us of sabotage in their newspaper we feel that we have their public attention.

Second, between 1973 and 1975 we exercised our freedom to associate with the organization which we perceived to be the leading force of anti-imperialist revolution in Canada. Since October 1975 we have been exercising our freedom to not associate with that same organization, having now learned, as a result of intense social practice, that CPC(M-L) is not the leading force of anti-imperialist revolution in Canada. Between 1973 and 1975 various individuals and organizations assumed that Alive was “an organ of the CPC(M-L)” despite the publicly proclaimed independence of Alive. In 1975-76 we have, conditions indicate, successfully built an atmosphere in which a number of individuals and organizations want to know what we’ve got on CPC (M-L) and what happened between CPC(M-L) and Alive in 1975.

In 1973 and 1974 the Alive Production Collective worked long and hard on two main fronts: dissemination and production. In disseminating Alive throughout southern Ontario a number of arrests and harassments were made of Alive sellers and short jail terms were served. In developing the means of production Alive obtained, among other things, computer typesetting equipment on purchase contracts and lease contracts.

On the typesetting equipment front obvious contradictions arose. The need to do enough commercial typesetting to make monthly payments led to obtaining more equipment in the typical spiral effect which large monopoly capitalist outfits have on small businesses.

By the end of 1974 the Alive Production Collective determined that it had too much equipment and too high an overhead. In the Alive Book Centre, a shop front used as a technical centre, there were two tape-fed computers and five tape-punching keyboards, as well as a large amount of auxiliary equipment. (The original computer purchased by Alive was “traded in on” a more advanced model six months after the original purchase. The U.S. multi-national computer company was phasing out the product line of the original one and so left it in the Alive premises pending a final re-sale.)

In the 1973 and 1974 period Alive, both directly and through its local arm Guelph News Service, established and maintained fraternal relations, based on the Five Principles of Proletarian Internationalism, with CPC(M-L) and held similar discussions with others as well. At the end of 1974, the organization CPC(M-L) had some informal discussions with Alive about their interest in obtaining typesetting equipment. This prompted the Alive Production Collective to draw up a formal proposal to CPC(M-L) on the question of production facilities.

On the basis of the fraternal relations, and pointing out that “all progressive cultural organizations and cultural workers should unite to oppose superpower politics, the imperialist domination of culture, revisionism, counterculture, etc. and should work to promote proletarian culture and revolutionary literature” the Alive Production Collective said in the December 1974 document: “we propose that a new publishing house he set up” and further “we propose that this publishing house be set up to unify the work of the progressive publishing organizations mentioned above. We propose that this publishing house be under the direct guidance of the central committee of CPC(M-L).”

The key words in the proposal were the word “new”, as opposed to the existing publishing facilities of any group, and the word “guidance”, as opposed to organizational discipline. Both Alive and CPC(M-L) had developed publishing and distribution organs. Alive had developed a very modern typesetting plant but was investigating ways and means or “toning that down.” CPC(M-L) had developed technical facilities that used an ordinary typewriter and was investigating various brands of computer typesetting equipment.

Alive offered CPC(M-L) various alternatives. One of these was that CPC(M-L) would buy out the last couple of years of Alive’s contracts instead of buying typesetting equipment. That would be smoother for them and would ensure immediate “delivery”.

The many-sided proposal by the Alive Production Collective was received by Hardial Bains, the Number-One Man of CPC(M-L) in early January, 1975. The proposal for a new publishing house was positively received and further talks were scheduled to take place between a representative of the CPC(M-L) corporation IDEOLOGICAL STUDIES CENTRE, INC. and a representative of Alive.

At the same time, because agreement in principle had been achieved, Alive agreed that CPC(M-L) be given immediate access to the technical centre which had been, built up by Alive. Between the last weekend of January, 1973 and the end of June, 1975 technical work, other than printing, on CPC(M-L)’s newspaper PCDN was handled from those facilities.

Arrangements were made and carried out by the Alive Production Collective for the training of CPC(M-L) technical people on the computer equipment, as these people arrived at the Alive Book Centre. Also on arrival at Alive’s facilities the PCDN EDITORIAL AND TECHNICAL STAfF elaborated on a problem to be solved, the dislocation in the publishing schedule of CPC(M-L)’s newspaper created a “backlog” of issues to be produced, if the complete series of one paper for six of every seven calendar days was to be fulfilled. (A mechanical attitude towards “competing” with the daily schedules of openly bourgeois newspapers! This “backlog” contradiction arose frequently.) Thus, not only was a daily newspaper to be produced but two, three or four newspapers every day until the “backlog’” was caught up.

Alive was asked to set its own work aside for a week to assist in clearing up certain aspects of the technical side of this “backlog”. Not realizing that the volume of the backlog was something akin to a bottomless well. Alive agreed.

In the following weeks several major struggles took place as Alive attempted to move back onto Alive work, in mid-March, 1975, the largest struggle of that period resulted in the attempted seizure of all keys to the Alive Book Centre by the CPC(M-L) area secretary, Richard Rathwell, on the basis that there could not be two authorities in the shop. (This “secretary” always viewed himself as a junior version of the Number-One-Man himself, thus, he was known in Alive circles as “Junior”.) Further, this man indicated that Alive would henceforth be required to give 48 hours notice of its intentions to use its own technical facilities. This contradiction was temporarily resolved by direct intervention of Junior’s superior in the CPC(M-L) organization, in favour of Alive’s right to use the equipment and with the line that the issue was “not one of two lines of authority but of joint agreements.”

Throughout the entire period of February-May, 1975 Alive people were needed to assist in the clearance of a continuous “backlog” of material being published by CPC(M-L). In April, 1975, discussions were held between the leadership of Alive and the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L). The topic of the discussion was the further consolidation and development of cultural work.

It was suggested to Alive that the publishing work of both could be very well advanced by opening of operations in British Columbia as well as southern Ontario. A further suggestion that Alive move to British Columbia was made. (This, later, was seen to be a polite “here’s-your coat, there’s-the-door” proposal!) The Alive Production Collective declined to accept a total uprooting (Alive’s roots are very deep and wide in Guelph and southern Ontario). Alive quickly countered the CPC(M-L) proposal with the suggestion that a section of the Alive Collective move to British Columbia and only for the period of time necessary to establish an outlet for the new publishing house on a firm footing there. The other section of Alive would “hold the fort” in southern Ontario.

In May, 1975, Alive moved one computer and two keyboards to Vancouver and set up a fully operational technical centre there, taking less than four days start to finish. By the beginning of June most of the agreed Alive people involved in this “new” venture were established in Vancouver. The member CPC(M-L) chose to participate was Junior, the same lock-out artist who had attempted to ban Alive from its own facilities in March. Alive people had agreed to his appointment in the spirit of setting aside past differences in favour of building unity. (It became apparent very early that principled unity was the one thing Junior did not have in his instructions. This man conjured up an introduction for Alive people around Vancouver, calling them “members of the Central Committee of Alive”, a peculiar sense of humour which did not surface until the leading member of Alive had left Vancouver.)

In early June, the leading member of Alive, who had personally led the top-speed establishment of the west coast technical centre, returned to southern Ontario for further discussions with the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L). In this set of discussions it was suggested to Alive that perhaps it would be better if the main forces of both organizations’ technical teams were concentrated in southern Ontario. At this point, because of the distances involved, it was becoming more and more difficult for the smaller of the two organizations, Alive, to hold cohesive collective discussion on such changes in plan.

During most of the May-August period Edward Pickersgill chauffered the Number-One-Man of the CPC(M-L) around southern Ontario and Quebec. This arrangement was accepted as the most streamlined solution to the logistical problem of getting both to the same places at the same time so they could conduct on-going discussions.

This was seen to be in accordance with Enver Hoxha’s explanation:

...Is it necessary for almost everyone in our state or administration apparatuses, in the economic or mass organization apparatuses to be communists? Naturally, it is a bit different with the Party apparatuses; in general the people employed there are required to be communists. Non-party workers cannot be employed there, except for a limited number. Nevertheless, there are jobs in a Party apparatus, which can be done by non-party workers, for it is not said that for instance the driver, the door-keeper, the librarian other employees should be Party members. (Socialism is Built By The Masses. The Party Makes Them Conscious. Enver Hoxha, Tirana, 1972 page 18.)

Later in June, the leading member of Alive again drove out to Vancouver with a carload of clothing and with a substantial portion of the Alive library and then immediately turned around and drove the Alive truck back to southern Ontario. That return trip was made in the space of six days. As a result the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) began to “introduce” the Alive man by emphasizing his driving qualities: “the man who drives from Guelph to Vancouver the way other people drive from Kitchener to Toronto.”

On arriving back in southern Ontario from his six day round trip to Vancouver, Edward Pickersgill discovered that the technical facilities had been moved from the Alive Book Centre to some other location. By this time the CPC (M-L) publishing company had forwarded payment to Alive in the amount of $27,000.00 which money was used by Alive to finalize purchase of the technical equipment, excluding the one computer which had been moved to Vancouver.

It was suggested to Alive that members of the Alive Production Collective wishing to use the computer equipment based in southern Ontario should take up residence in Toronto. This was done by a section of the A.P.C. At this stage there were members of the Alive Collective in Guelph, in Vancouver and in Toronto. Prior to May all members of the Alive Production Collective were based in Guelph where they had developed in practice friendly, open and honest attitudes and relations with people they came to trust.

The Toronto technical centre, a perverted substitute for the Alive-proposed new publishing house, was in fact the old PCDN technical centre jazzed up by Alive’s modern equipment. This place was established as a part of a “lock out”’ against Alive that made the fast shuffle by Junior in the spring look like the work of a baby in its crib. It is interesting to note here some points about the history of Alive’s publishing schedule. The May 1975 issue,numbered 43, was the last issue of Alive produced from the Alive Book Centre. Number 45, produced in November 1975, was the first issue Alive was able to produced during the intervening six month period (number 44-Aug, 1975)was successfully produced because it was typeset half and half by Alive people in Vancouver and half by Alive people in Toronto. The final production work was completed in twelve hours in Toronto. CPC(M-L) was, literally, forced to concede this but even then gave time during one of hottest days of the summer when the CPC(M-L) technical people couldn’t work due to the heat. All in all, certainly not the style of work of “mutually beneficial” technical centre!

Two of the three Alive people in Toronto, both in progressive newspaper and book production work, were “encouraged” to participate in the CPC(M-L) publishing work at the technical centre there. The force of veteran production workers was also boosted when, in August 1975, the two Alive people remaining in Vancouver were recalled to southern Ontario at the request of Alive but by a direct discussion with the Number-One-Man of the CPC(M-L). His instruction also led to these two being set up in living quarters separate from the other Alive people in Toronto but very close to his transformed technical centre.

The “jazzed-up” technical centre was operated in premises leased under the name PEOPLE’S CANADA PUBLISHING HOUSE. A week or so after the PCDN staff moved into that “modern publishing plant”, at 2 a.m. Edward Pickersgill was asked by the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) to drive to the new technical centre with Junior and Bains himself. This was only a few hours after the hostage seizing at New Westminster Penitentiary in Vancouver, in which the prisoners asked to speak to “the leader of the Marxist-Leninists.” In the parking lot of the technical centre the car was accosted by two Metro Toronto police. Identification and the purposes of presence were demanded. Under the circumstances the Alive member was happy not make any tactical or strategic decisions, that necessity being alleviated when the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) signaled Edward Pickersgill to identify himself. Both of the CPC(M-L) members identified themselves. The leading member by showing his S.I.N, (social insurance) card and the Lock-out artist simply verbally. The leading member of CPC(M-L) then identified that they were there to go into their business premises. He pointed at the place; where a light was shining, and stated: “We’re from People’s Canada Publishing House.” Thus, it was the Number-One-Man himself who, very early on, informed representatives of the bourgeois state machine about the location of his place of work; and not anyone from Alive who revealed the location as some rumours conjured up later have claimed.

At the end of August and the beginning of September the Alive people in Guelph held a speedy fund-raising campaign at the request of their leading member. The computer company was vigorously threatening to turn matter of the missing and unpurchased computer to the police. On September 11, 1975 the leading member of Alive went into the computer company and paid $7,000 for the missing computer and as well was forced to pay $4,000 for typesetting supplies used during the months March-August 1975 by the PEOPLE’S CANADA PUBLISHING HOUSE, in the course of producing CPC(M-L) newspapers and books. (These payments effectively wiped the last of Alive’s “cash-on-hand”.)

In September the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) opened up discussions inside his own publishing organization and with the leading member of Alive on the question of expanding still further the facilities. The leading member; of Alive was asked to commence discussion with real estate companies on much larger premises and as well with a company in the U.S. on the possibilities of Alive purchasing, with promised financial backing of CPC(M-L)’s publishing company, a $120,000.00 web offset printing press.

During this time the leading member of Alive and the other veteran Alive production worker resident in Toronto were both definitely considering suggestions that they apply to join the technical unit of the organization CPC(M-L).

In March, 1975, during the major “lock-out” struggle: at the Alive Book Centre, the Alive Production Collective resolved unanimously to re-affirm the position that any Alive member who wanted to apply to join another organization, including CPC(M-L), was free to do so, as an individual. It was further resolved that every Alive should give such a move with specific reference to CPC(M-L) serious consideration but, if it developed in that direction, should attempt to base that position on social practice and not wishful thinking.

The matter of applications with the Toronto Alive people developed to the point when at a meeting of the staff of the jazzed-up technical centre in which every one, including CPC(M-L)ers, was supposed to present “political biographies” it was only Alive people who had prepared such documents. In face of this failure of the first steps towards formalizing the staff, the whole process was postponed and the relevant documents were never presented by the Alive people. But that’s how close it came. This path of making applications to join was pressed often and heavily on the Alive people. At that point in time such complete consolidation seemed to be the only logical extension of the irrational events of 1975. In a classic case of “not seeing the forest for the trees” a simple fact was not yet clear to the members of the Alive Production Collective: the sane life of revolutionary struggle has to involve a definite split from the insane line of counter-revolutionary capitulation.

One thing which made it difficult for the Alive people to sort out what on earth was going on was the increasing intensity with which they were informed that work in the technical centre meant membership in one or all of the CPC (M-L) organizations connected with the technical centre (It was a case of take your pick: PCDN EDITORIAL AND TECHNICAL STAFF; WORKER’S COLLEGE COMMITTEE OF CPC(M-L); a PEOPLE’S CANADA PUBLISHING HOUSE COMMITTEE of the “new” type; the SOUTHERN ONTARIO YOUTH AND STUDENTS COMMITTEE; CPC(M-L) itself; the NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS CENTRE STAFF; a COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH A PROVISIONAL BRANCH OF CPC(M-L) in some area an AD-HOC version of a COMMITTEE TO ESTABLISH A PROVISIONAL BRANCH OF CPC(M-L); and the “organizations” and “units’ which weren’t mentioned to membership candidates but lurked with equally shadowy form: the NORMAN BETHUNE INSTITUTE FOR IDEOLOGICAL STUDIES; IDEOLOGICAL STUDIES CENTRE, INC.; TECHNICAL “STAFFS” of every single book or newspaper – MASS LINE, etc. All in all, an organization for all seasons and every individual around – whether they were a CPC(M-L)er or not!)

In the main this came down to the line that the Alive people should stop vacillating about this and apply to join whatever organization was the issue of the particular occasion. In the meantime, so-called discipline had to be maintained. And, an essential part of this discipline was that nobody should talk to anybody else about the work other than at formal meetings. It was an incredible situation.

The Alive people all “held that discipline” while they wondered what the hell was going on (vacillated). The last two to return from Vancouver had the least idea of what was happening, on the one hand living in conditions of complete insanity and on the other hand denied the possibility of communicating with anyone they could be certain from past experience was sane and trustworthy. Everything the Alive people have since read in the Marxist-Leninist classics and from the contemporary revolutionary leaders indicates that this whole organizational form was and is highly reactionary and is implemented precisely to eliminate all progress.

The key thing in a reactionary organizing pattern which implements the discipline of only having discussion in formal meetings, where minutes are kept, is that even formal meetings are few and far between. This was true in the situation being sketched here.

In August, faced with increasing pressure by the computer company to either return or pay for the missing computer, the leading member of Alive pulled one of the time-worn, “petty businessman” tricks, that always served the needs and wishes of the Number-One-Man in CPC(M-L) so thoroughly. He expressed, to the computer company, an interest in purchasing a keyboard slightly more advanced than the ones previously purchased. He also said he’d like to try it out first. When a monopoly capitalist company smells a new sale in the wind it will always set aside differences which can be brought to court later. That keyboard was held by Alive people in Guelph for a couple of weeks despite the fact that there was no computer to go with it.

In September two things happened on the front of the keyboard on loan. First the computer company began to smell a delaying tactic and second the “technical centre” began a big typesetting push for a new CPC(M-L) book publishing program. The keyboard was requested by the “technical centre” for use for a week. Assurances were made that the keyboard would only be held for a week and then returned to the computer company.

Assured of this and eager after nine pressured months to finally detach the direct pressures of the monopoly capitalist computer company, Edward Pickersgill paid off the the outstanding “debts” as described earlier and secured a further weeks’s trial on the keyboard.

Also during September, the leading member of Alive received a cheque to be used as a deposit against rental of the premises by Alive, which would be “sublet” to the CPC(M-L) publishing company. That cheque was given by Alive, as a deposit of two months rent for the premises, to the real estate company in the same amount. Negotiations on the premises in question dragged on into the beginning of October.

Neither the question of the premises nor the question of the keyboard had been resolved when, on October 11, 1975, the leading member of Alive walked out of CPC(M-L)’S technical centre, the contorted result of the proposal that “a new publishing house” be formed. This walk-out was the only level-headed response to the madness and accumulated frustration of the previous nine months. The specific moment of Edward Pickersgill’s action had been prompted by a brief, sharp and vigorous exchange between him and a former Tish poet, who is now CPC(M-L)’S leading cultural personage and whose name is the only one printed in NEW LITERATURE & IDEOLOGY.

Two days later, on Monday, October 13, 1975, a major meeting was held at the “technical centre” in which the leading member of the Alive Production Collective was denounced by the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) and others for a “long history of disruptions and sabotage against the party work.” He was accused of deserting a post (N.B. which he had never applied to join), and treating with contempt those “comrades” who had histories of opportunism and counter-revolutionary activities going back into the 1960’s.

Only two of the three members of Alive who were still operating at the “technical centre”, mainly on keyboard operation were “allowed” to attend this infamous October 13 meeting. The third Alive member, a veteran of standing second only to the leading member of Alive, was excluded from the gathering. When Edward Pickersgill returned to the CPC(M-L) technical centre to put forward his view of the twisted situation which had developed since the Alive proposal of December, 1974 he was blocked at the door from even entering the place. He was told he would be contacted. Five days after he left the technical centre the leading member of Alive was contacted by a “special investigation” team: the former Tish-ite and the nephew of the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L). The “investigation” amounted to the two CPC (M-L)ers demanding to know why Edward Pickersgill had “deserted his post” and their immediate departure when the Alive man said that he was quite willing to explain his actions but, only in the framework of the distortion-in-practice of Alive’s December 1974 proposal and other events leading up to October 11.

The investigation team returned one other time a couple of days later but were met with a response they found even less acceptable. The investigation was then turned over to a new team. One member was the national spokesman of CPC(M-L), who is the representative member of the executive of the CPC(M-L) corporation in the following exchange of letters, and the other member was Junior, the infamous lock-out artist, who was now the ’man’ for CPC(M-L) in British Columbia.

This new “investigation” team also fell to pieces, after trying to contact and collect statements from all the members of the Alive Production Collective. It turned out that the CPC(M-L) couldn’t keep track of their own contortions and actually knew little of the internal strengths of the Alive Production Collective. (The historical base area of Alive in Guelph was never shaken by the attempts of CPC(M-L) to undermine Alive’s foundations. Within one month of Edward Pickersgill’s decisive split with the conspiratorial, opportunist manoeuvring of the Number-One-Man of CPC(M-L) and his gang, all full members of the Alive Production Collective had re-grouped in Guelph. The work of Alive, the anti-imperialist cultural work, has grown and flowered in every way in the year since that time, fully confirming the correctness of the leading members of the Alive Production Collective.

The new investigators did go so far, though, as to offer “jobs” in the Toronto technical centre to various members of the Alive Production Collective that they did “find”. This is reminiscent of Mao Tsetung’s description of the logic of all reactionaries: “Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again ...”

Junior carried on as “the comrade-in-charge of dealing with” the leading member of the Alive Production Collective. At times he was assisted by various others including Shotgun Bob. Shotgun Bob’s first activity as the CPC(M-L) secretary in the Guelph area, in the first days of November 1975, was to help Junior “terrorize” anybody they knew of who had a connection to Alive. This activity even extended to some people who had simply read Alive once or twice and had no other connections! All their attempts proved the utter bankruptcy of their political line an organization. In one two-hour period these characters under the guise of being a “CONTROL COMMISSION” pounded on the doors of all the homes of “known” anti-imperialist cultural workers in Guelph – a typical R.C.M.P, terror tactic. At every turn they were opposed and repulsed, the typical response of the people to fascist terrorism.

Finally, it is interesting to note that CPC (M-L) complemented its outright reactionary practice with revisionist theory. Four days after the leading member of the Alive Production Collective split with CPC(M-L)’s lunacy, one day after the meeting at which Hardial Bains denounced Edward Pickersgill, and only a few hours after Trudeau announced his program of wage controls, CPC(M-L) issued a slogan (MAKE THE RICH PAY) that is completely devoid of class content and as such, over the last year, has built support for the government’s wage controls and the bourgeois it’s program of continuing to make the working masses pay.